In a recent interview with News Central Television’s Kayode Akintemi, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo lamented the country’s escalating debt burden. Despite leaving office with approximately $70 billion in reserves in 2007, Nigeria’s debt has significantly increased.
Obasanjo recounted his administration’s accomplishments, saying:
“I came in 1999 and met $3.7 billion in the reserve. We spent $3.5 billion to service debts. By the time we left eight years later, with debt relief, we reduced the debt from close to $36 billion to about $3.5-3.6 billion.”
Obasanjo went on to say;
“We left $45 billion in reserves and $25 billion in the ‘excess crude’ account. That’s $70 billion. Now, the point is that I left in 2007. Today, between 2007 and 2024, all that amount of money has gone; all of it. Not only that, but all the money they made all that period had gone. And today, we owe more than we owed when we came to government in 1999.”
Obasanjo attributed Nigeria’s rising debt to poor leadership, emphasizing:
“The quantum of debt that I left was about $3.5-3.6 billion from over or around $36 billion. Today, we owe more.”
Nigeria’s debt servicing problems began around 1985, with the country’s total external debt amounting to $19 billion. Despite paying over $35 billion to creditors, the outstanding external debt grew to almost $36 billion by 2004. The Paris Club creditors proposed an unprecedented debt buyback at a discount, canceling Nigeria’s $31 billion debt in exchange for a $12 billion cash payment.
Nigeria’s debt has surpassed the $36 billion inherited in 1999.
